National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II): Cognitive Project, 2004-2006 (ICPSR 25281)

In 1994/1995, the MacArthur Midlife Research Network carried out a national survey of over 7,000 Americans aged 25 to 74. The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health. A description of the study and findings from it are available at http://www.midus.wisc.edu. With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples (core ... (more info)

In 1994/1995, the MacArthur Midlife Research Network carried out a national survey of over 7,000 Americans aged 25 to 74. The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health. A description of the study and findings from it are available at http://www.midus.wisc.edu. With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples (core sample (N = 3,487), metropolitan over-samples (N = 757), twins (N = 957 pairs), and siblings (N = 950)) was conducted in 2004-2006. Guiding hypotheses, at the most general level, were that behavioral and psychosocial factors are consequential for health (physical and mental). The purpose of the Cognitive Project was to determine how cognition is related to overall mental and physical health. Specific goals were: (1) to characterize the nature and range of midlife cognitive performance, relative to those younger and older, across multiple domains in a nationally representative sample (MIDUS); and (2) to examine the relationship between biopsychosocial factors (e.g., SES, health status, health-promoting behaviors, metabolic and cardiovascular biomarkers, depression, personality, control beliefs, stressful life events) and individual differences in cognitive functioning. The development of a cognitive battery for the second wave of testing of the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) study provided an opportunity to examine the cognitive performance of young, middle-aged and older adults from a wide range of education levels in a large-scale, national sample. As part of the Cognitive Project of the MIDUS II the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone (BTACT) (Lachman &amp; Tun, 2008; Tun &amp; Lachman, 2006) was administered. More information about the BTACT can be found at www.brandeis.edu/projects/lifespan. The BTACT represents the first comprehensive cognitive battery, including measures of speed and reaction time, to be administered by telephone to a national sample across the adult years and into later life. With a response rate of over 86 percent for the cognitive testing component of the MIDUS II, a cognitive data set of unprecedented range in terms of age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), education, and geographic diversity was produced.

Access Notes

These data are freely available.

This study is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA), the aging program within ICPSR. NACDA
is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Heath (NIH).

Dataset(s)

National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II): Cognitive Project, 2004-2006
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Study Description

Citation

Ryff, Carol D., and Margie E. Lachman. National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II): Cognitive Project, 2004-2006. ICPSR25281-v5. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-04-29. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25281.v5

Universe:
Adult noninstitutionalized population in the contiguous United States

Data Types:
experimental data,
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

All data files in the MIDUS study (both longitudinal and cross-sectional) can be linked using a key variable called M2ID.

The DDI codebook (PDF file) and the XML file (contained in a .zip package) released by ICPSR were provided by MIDUS and were not changed in any way by ICPSR. These original files do not reflect any of the processing done by ICPSR.

Methodology

Sample:
All respondents participating in MIDUS II (the longitudinal follow-up to MIDUS [see ICPSR 2760] or the Milwaukee study [see ICPSR 22840]) were eligible to participate in the cognitive assessments.

Weight:
Weighting datasets and documentation can be found in MIDUS 1 (#2760) and 2 (#4652).

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Created online analysis version with question text.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2009-05-04

Version History:

2013-04-29 Update to documentation files.

2013-03-15 Codebooks in XML (DDI 3) and PDF formats have been created.These were provided by the PI. There have been minor changes to the data that are detailed in the readme file.

2011-10-25 The document titled DDI codebook has been renamed Codebook.

2010-11-01 The data have been updated and now include 306 cases from the Milwaukee subsample. The documentation has also been updated to reflect this change.